Page 14 of Echoes

“Where are you right now?” Lydia proceeded to ask her.

“I’m here,” she replied. “With you.”

“Areyou? You haven’t even moved.”

Eliza was lying naked under her girlfriend, who was also naked, and Lydia was right: Eliza’s hands were lying at her sides, not touching the woman above her whom she’d been aching to touch for weeks.

“Sorry, I…”

“Did you not come? I thought–”

“I did. I did,” she said and wrapped her arms around Lydia’s neck. “But I would love it if I could come again, and I would love it even more if you would use your mouth this time.”

When Lydia smirked at her in response, Eliza felt awful because she was distracting her with sex instead of telling her what was going on inside her head. Still, Lydia stood up, and Eliza turned her body until her legs were hanging off the side of the bed. Lydia knelt in front of her then, always happy to give Eliza what she wanted in the bedroom, and as Lydia’s tongue met her sensitive flesh, she closed her eyes, trying her best to push all the thoughts out of her head and just focus on how good it felt to have Lydia there.

Twelve Years Later

“Mom?”

“In here,” the woman replied as Eliza walked into the kitchen and saw her mom staring out the bay window into the backyard, sipping her tea. “It’s going to snow,” she added.

“Is it?” Eliza asked and sat down at the table next to her.

“Yes, I can tell.”

“Mom, can I talk to you?”

“About snow?” She turned to Eliza.

“No. About Dad.”

“Did you take the things to the storage like I asked?”

“I did. There are still a few boxes downstairs that I’ll get before I leave, but it’s not about that.”

“Then, what?”

“His funeral.”

Her mother tilted her head and asked, “What about his funeral?”

“I know you were… a little… out of it, and you spent pretty much the whole thing in your room, but there’s something I want you to look at and tell me if you recognize him.”

“What are you talking about?”

Eliza pulled out her phone and turned it to her. On the screen was the sketch she’d worked on with the artist. She swallowed, praying silently that her mother would recognize him and know the man’s name, but more importantly, that this exercise wouldn’t hurt the woman any worse than she’d already been.

“Him. Do you recognize him?”

“Yes, of course.”

Eliza’s eyes widened then, and she nearly dropped the phone.

“What do you mean,‘Yes, of course,’Mom?”

“His name is Albert. He worked with your father. Why? What does this have to do with the funeral?”

“He–” Eliza shook her head. “He worked with Dad?”